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Bloomberg Launches Initiative to Help Cities With Coronavirus Response

Workers from a Servpro disaster recovery team wearing protective suits and respirators enter the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., to begin cleaning and disinfecting the facility, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, near Seattle.
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

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Route Fifty Staff

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March 11, 2020

It’s intended to provide mayors with technical guidance, coaching and other assistance.

Mayors around the U.S. can obtain access to additional resources aimed at helping their cities respond to the coronavirus outbreak, under a new program announced this week.

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative are partnering on what they’re calling the Coronavirus Local Response Initiative.

The program is meant to connect mayors with “rapid technical assistance and coaching” from public health and public management experts and will also link mayors together in an online network.

Making policy decisions about things like quarantine guidelines and restrictions on large events are the types of issues that the program is intended to provide local leaders help with.

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, in comments this week stressed that the program was meant to supplement, not replace, information from federal health agencies.

“There are going to be many difficult decisions to make. And acting fast right now, we may be able to prevent or delay thousands or tens of thousands of infections in the coming weeks,” Bloomberg said recently, according to an announcement about the program.

Mayors U.S. cities of any size are eligible to apply for the program. Those interested should send an email to coronavirusresponse@bloomberg.org.